How the Cat got in the Hat
by Sakiku
Summary: A small story about how Yoruichi got her transformation abilities. After all, no other shinigami can change forms into an animal.
1. Of Women and Cats

**Title: **How the Cat got in the Hat – or, better, in the Woman. Or the Woman in the Cat.

**Author: **Sakiku

**Beta: **Guttersnipe(FF(dot)net author)

**Rating: ****M **(for some curse words and non-descriptive sex)

**Summary: **A small story about how Yoruichi got her transformation abilities. After all, no other shinigami can change forms into an animal

**Disclaimer: **As sad as it is, I don't own Bleach or any of the Bleach characters. Many thanks to their inventor!

**A/N: **A story that started out as a crackpot-idea after seeing just how many lovey-dovey-romance-stories there are in the fandom. I wanted to do something different from (insert name) pining after Ichigo, Ichigo pining after (insert name), or Ishida trying to establish a relationship with whoever. To my horror, this turned out somewhat romantic, too. But at least I think I managed to skip most of the lovey-dovey crap…

**A list of Japanese terms and their explanation, for the whole story (I'm not going to paste this every chapter):**

_bakudou_ - restraining arts (part of the demonic arts, kidou)  
_fuku-taichou_ - Vice-Captain  
_futon_ - Japanese version of bed. Ichigo doesn't have one, but nearly everyone in Soul Society does  
_geta_ - high wooden sandals  
_gigai_ - faux body  
_hadou_ - destructive arts (part of the demonic arts, kidou)  
_haori_ - open overcoat, usually about knee- or calf-length  
_hakama_ - traditional men's wear, easily recognizable by its characteristic folds. Exists both as skirt and pants version.  
_kidou_ - demonic arts (composed of destructive and restraining arts)  
_reiatsu_ - spirit pressure (I incorrectly use it for 'spirit energy' as well)  
_shouji_ - sliding doors  
_shunpo_- flash step  
_shunkou_ - lit.: flash cry; Yoruichi's technique of combining hand-to-hand with kidou  
_taichou_ - Captain  
_tatami_ - rice straw mats, used for room floors  
_tessen_ - Japanese war fan. Ribs are made from steel so that it can easily cut through flesh with the right techniques. Made to look like a harmless wood- and paper-fan  
_waraji_ - straw- and rope sandals like all Bleach shinigami wear. Actually a monk's footwear  
_yukata_ - thin, ankle- or knee-length 'bath robe' that is tied shut in the middle. On hot days, it can also be worn on its own (women and men) or tucked into hakama (men).  
_zanpakutou_ - lit: soul slaying sword (Soul Slayer)

* * *

**1. Of Women and Cats**

He idly lets his reiatsu trail over her sleeping form, indulging in her velvety skin. Her body is perfect with long, toned limbs and pert breasts; immaculate curves, the goddess that she is. There are only a few signs of their earlier exertions; a drying film of sweat on their bodies and the scent of musk in the air being the most prominent.

They have spent many evenings like this; as many as their duties allow. Nonetheless, he rediscovers his awe of being so blessed every time.

His reiatsu continues exploring her, spreading over her whole form. It caresses her skin, slips and slithers into her every opening, until he can feel her body better than his own. He can feel every breath she takes, the slightest twitch in her muscles, the fine hair on her skin that rises in a trail of goose bumps despite the heat of the night.

She sighs quietly, unconsciously leaning towards him in sleep.

It is a heady feeling, always, despite him having done it many times before. He has spent so very many nights worshipping her with both his hands and reiatsu that her body has learned to recognize him, and instinctively lets him touch her.

He has enveloped her so completely that he can lay back and close his eyes, not needing to watch her to see every detail of her body. Her breathing is calm and deep, filling the small capillaries in her lungs with oxygen to fuel her body. Her breasts rise and fall, just as he can feel her alveoli expand and shrink. He can even feel the moist tickle of various liquids deep in her barren womb and it makes shivers run down his back.

Exploring her with his reiatsu as intimately as he does now is not something he can do while she is awake. Because she reflexively raises her own energy to tingle across her skin, he is prevented from making as close contact as he wants to.

While she is asleep though, her reiatsu is more relaxed.

In the beginning, many years ago, he had only caressed her with big, bold strokes that were about as subtle as his own hand. But, over many nights of practice and over many nights of getting her used to his reiatsu, he had refined his control. He had shaped and molded and restrained his reiatsu until he could feel every single hair on her skin, every depression of her pores. His reiatsu didn't touch her anymore; it flowed in gaseous wisps of iron control.

But it wasn't enough. It was never enough. He could have counted every single hair on her body if he'd had the time and quiet, but counting hairs just didn't interest him. He wanted to go deeper, feel more of her body than he could with his own fingers.

At first, he tried medical kidou.

But he quickly discarded medical kidou, even though it let the medic's reiatsu ghost through the patient's body to see internal damage and all.

What he wants has nothing to do with medical kidou. He is not interested in letting his reiatsu phase through her without resistance. He wants to feel her, to explore her, to know her on a level that no man has known a woman before.

So he shaped his reiatsu densely enough to feel the resistance of her calluses, her skin, her mucous membranes, and invaded her body deeper than ever before. He gradually started exploring those small openings he had always neglected. They were even more sensitive than her most sensitive patches of skin, and it took him many nights to shape his reiatsu finely enough to not tickle her awake when he poured himself into her ears, her cervix, her nose, her lungs.

That is the second reason why he always waits until she is deeply asleep. There is a phase of sleep when her muscles relax completely, when her heartbeat and breathing rate slow to a minimum, and when it takes strong sensory impulses to wake her up again. It takes an hour until she is deep enough, but then he has about twenty minutes during which she is practically dead to the world.

He had, very early on, learned the dangers of her waking up to his explorations. More than once, he had only barely dissolved his reiatsu before she turned around and slugged him a good one. His body still remembers the bruises and the occasional broken bone she had given him during this period of experimentation.

The third reason for waiting for her to be asleep, though, is the most important one: minimizing the danger to her.

Very early on, he found out that, because his reiatsu is so close to her, it cannot only explore but also rend.

As long as he had only been exploring her outer skin, there had been no chance of serious injury. Even her most tender spots were too thick to be hurt by small fluctuations in his control. Those soft tissues far inside her are different though. As thinly spread as his reiatsu is, it can still damage her if she makes sudden, unanticipated movements that break his concentration.

There were a few close calls when he was startled out of his explorations due to outside influences. His reiatsu, reflexively acting on a perceived danger, broke apart into sharp splinters to defend him while still deep in her body.

He was lucky that he didn't kill her.

Of course, he immediately healed her afterwards, and on the one occasion she woke up from it, he told her that one of his medical kidou went wrong. She believed him. Fourth division did too.

So he has learned to restrict his explorations to that short period of time when she is so deeply asleep that she seems almost dead; a time of night which is the quietest in all of Soul Society. It has slowed his studies, but if there is one thing he has in abundance, it is time.

Nowadays, many years after his first explorations, her reiatsu is so used to his that it just ignores his intrusions whenever she is unconscious. Sometimes, this also carries over into her waking hours, but only on a microscopic level. He seriously doubts that she has honed her perception sharply enough to sense the invisible mingling of their auras at the outermost edges. A few years ago he wouldn't have sensed it himself, and he had already studied her for years back then.

A small twitch of her eyelids reminds him that he has to retreat soon. He can feel her heartbeat getting stronger, her respiration getting deeper to prepare for her first dream phase. Watching her while she's dreaming is nice, too, but it has nothing on the indescribable rush of pouring himself against and into her, timing himself to her rhythm in every minute detail until he loses himself in her.

With a sigh, he lets his reiatsu fade into nothingness. The tendrils become immaterial enough to phase through her body, giving him a hollow echo of her health when they return to him.

He aches to reach out again, to recapture the sense of closeness he has achieved, but he controls himself. Instead, he slowly lets a physical hand trail across her tanned stomach, carding curly hairs with his fingers. With his other elbow, he props himself onto his side to study her with his physical eyes. He likes it, how her legs fall apart as his hand travels further south, a muscled thigh resting against his hip.

He watches how her breathing grows faster and faster, her eyes roving agitatedly beneath her eyelids. Slowly, so very slowly, he pours his physical body against her in an aching attempt to reach the same closeness as with his reiatsu. This time, he explores her with his mouth and his skin and his eyes, and he is rewarded by small sighs of pleasure.

She is still more asleep than awake when her hips begin to undulate softly, breaking the paralysis of her dreamy state. Her hands slowly fist into his hair, holding his head against her skin as her reiatsu gently pulses with arousal.

He doesn't know how long they move together in that half dream, half conscious dance. He only feels her reiatsu against his, her skin against his, her body against his, and slowly, he feels less empty. He is alone in his body, but she is there flush against him, moving with him in a way that can almost fill the hollow ache.

The end almost takes them by surprise, her fluttering muscles snapping the last of his loneliness. For a brief moment, he can feel that they are one again, feels more than hears her breathe his name.

"Mmmmh… Kisuke…"

The hand that, by now, is almost painfully fisted in his hair, relaxes and pets him until their last shudders subside. The cooling sweat on their bodies is refreshing on this hot night, and he is too comfortable to move from his position half on, half in her. Humid warmth wraps around them from where they touch, saturating them with their moist scent. Her breaths raise and lower him like the ocean, quiet in their strength. He knows that he should get off of her to let her breathe easier, but he is too relaxed and too content to actually do it unless she helps him with a forceful shove.

He decides that his Goddess of Flash is more than strong enough to make her discomfort known should she need to.

After a while, the petting becomes slower and slower, and finally, both of them succumb to sleep.

* * *

On one of his outings to the real world, he runs across a little, black cat. He is in one of his modified gigai, testing it out for motion, sensation, and function. None of the humans he has talked to so far realized that he's different from them, but somehow the alley-cat cannot be fooled. From its position on top of a few discarded wooden planks, it stares at him with huge, yellow eyes that remind him of his goddess.

He crouches down a few feet from the cat, studying it intently. "What are you doing here, neko-chan?"

It doesn't react, nor even blink. He can see the tip of its tail twitching, but he has too little knowledge of cat psychology and physiognomy to know what it means. They keep staring at each other, neither of them wanting to look away first.

Finally, he sighs and gets up again, wobbling a little bit as the combination of geta and imperfect gigai control almost rob him of his balance. He whips out the fan he always hides in his sleeve, using it together with his cane to help him balance like a high wire artist. When he is steady again, he scowls at the cat from behind his fan.

"You must have great strength to cause me to fall with your mere presence. And, look," he snaps his fan shut and tugs the lower edge of his haori around for the cat to see, "you even dirtied my clothes by making me crouch down in such an unclean place."

He can feel Benihime sniggering softly in the depths of his consciousness, and he knows that it is ridiculous to talk to a cat. But it is amusing.

In an exaggerated gesture, he crosses his legs and leans on his cane for support.

"You," he snaps his closed fan around to point directly at the cat. Benihime's snickering escalates. "You will come with me and work for me until you have made reparations!"

He holds this pose until even he feels ridiculous. Clearing his throat slightly, he straightens up again and fans himself, more to hide his embarrassment behind the paper and steel ribs than for real physical need.

He takes up Benihime again, twirling her idly around his finger. He still thinks it a stroke of genius to mask her invisible form (to mortals) as a cane in the Living World. Originally, he got the idea from the Captain Commander's version, but he has added his own twist.

He looks back at the cat and decides to let it be. It probably wouldn't have been a good idea to take it to Soul Society, anyway.

Bringing the tip of his once again closed fan around to his temple, he salutes the cat. "Bye-bye, neko-chan!"

With an exaggerated bow, he turns around on his heels, and to the amusement of Benihime, barely manages to keep his balance.

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up," he grouches. "I'd like to see you do better in this gigai… Hm, maybe I should work more on the nervous interface to allow for better control… or…"

He trails off, in deep thought, absently touching the tip of his fan to the corner of his lips in a thinking pose. He is so absorbed in his thoughts that he doesn't see the small black shadow darting in front of him. As a result, he feels something soft connect with his shins, trips over it, and seconds later finds himself strewn across the mud of the alley-way. He has instinctively begun to unsheathe Benihime, but he doesn't sense any immediate danger. Instead, his eyes connect with the unmoving yellow ones of the black alley cat – which is sitting right in front of him, looking somewhat smug.

"Maybe I shouldn't wear geta on gigai," he comments from his position on the ground. Benihime laughs, and for the first time, the cat blinks.

He blinks in answer. "You agree?"

He struggles to his feet--not an easy achievement in such high shoes--and curiously inspects his shoulder and elbow. His haori is very dirty.

"At least now I know that pain stimuli are faultlessly transmitted by the gigai." There are a few pebbles embedded in his flesh and without a flinch, he plucks them out. "Yeah, it works, alright. Maybe it would be better if it didn't work…?"

Suddenly, he turns to the cat that has jumped to a higher position, on a dilapidated wooden fence. A wide smile comes over his face at the disinterested look in its yellow eyes.

"You know, neko-chan, you are an excellent research assistant," he rejoices. "I've always needed someone like you to help me test out my new inventions! Within less than ten minutes, you have helped me with the gigai control issue more than a whole team of my seated officers. I'll take you with me to the twelfth division, and I'll make you my vice-captain!"

The cat's tail flicks a little bit. But when he suddenly appears next to the cat with an arm slung around it, the cat screeches and puts its claws to good use.

"No? Even when I bribe you with a dish of milk a day?"

The cat doesn't take notice of his words and continues to hiss and scratch at him. In response, he raises his reiatsu a bit, and suddenly, the cat's claws can't penetrate his skin anymore.

He chuckles, inspecting his bloody hand. "You are really a great help, neko-chan! You clearly demonstrate that reiatsu works in this gigai in the way I want it to! You know, I'll extend my offer of a dish of milk to a piece of fish a day. What do you say?"

Gripping the cat by its neck, he lifts the feline until its eyes bore into his. He increases his spirit pressure until the cat is reduced to trembling slightly, wide golden eyes staring wildly at him. He smiles again.

"So you agree? No objections?" He waits a bit, but the cat doesn't move. His smile widens. "That's a good little neko-chan. No, not neko-chan; vice-captain neko-chan! You're going to be a good vice-captain!"

Twirling Benihime's disguise around until he can bring its tip against the cat's forehead, he is ready to make use of one of the cane's unique features. He gives the feline a slight tap, and its spirit is seamlessly separated from its body. The body falls down motionlessly while he keeps his grip around the spirit's neck.

"Sorry, neko-chan," he almost sings to the freaked-out, paralyzed cat soul, "can't take you with me if you're in there. Soul Society is called _Soul_ Society for a reason. I also have to leave this gigai before I can go through the portal."

He grabs the clinically dead, physical body of the cat. "But don't worry, neko-chan! I'll take good care of both your spirit and your body. I'll bring it along just like my gigai, and then you can be my vice-captain for as long as I want! Erh, pardon; as long as _you_ want, of course."

He dances around for a bit, physical body tucked under one arm, cat spirit under the other, and Benihime snagged on his wrist.

"Oh." He suddenly stops, holding the body and the spirit out in front of him. "You're still linked. What to do, what to do…"

He pauses a bit, studying the intact chain between soul and body.

"I know!" he cries suddenly, drawing and sheathing Benihime before either cat or its body can succumb to the pull of gravity. As a result, the soul link is severed, and he catches the two, now separate halves, once again.

Afterwards, he stares at his own hands. "Wow, neko-chan," he crows in delight. "You've shown me how to use shunpo in this gigai! If I didn't need you in my division so badly, I would immediately promote you from vice-captain to captain! The others are going to be so envious of my new fuku-taichou! Wait for a second and I'll join you in spirit form!"

He deposits both cat and body on the ground, covering the cat with a blanket of reiatsu to make sure it won't run away. Quickly, he brings Benihime's cane end to his own forehead and pushes his soul out of the gigai. Well, his head comes away freely, but he has to struggle quite a bit to get the rest of his body out of the gigai.

When he is finally done, he lies on the ground, panting, once again staring into the cat's eyes that are completely terrorized.

"You know, neko-chan," he muses, in all seriousness, "I think I'll have to work a little bit more on the separation."

Picking himself up, he immediately snatches Benihime from the ground, reveling in the feeling of closeness to his zanpakutou. In his gigai, it just never felt like that. Another thing to work on, but for now…

He unsheathes Benihime and thrusts her blade into thin air in front of him. He feels for the expected resistance and then turns her around, just like a key in a lock. Sliding gates pop into existence, opening one after another to spill bright white light. He once again turns around on his heels, this time infinitely more graceful in his geta. In one grand motion, he tucks Benihime into his sash, picks up the cat, its body, and his gigai, and steps into the light.


	2. Sex, Drugs, and Cats

**2. Sex, Drugs, and Cats. Not Necessarily in that Order or Combination.**

Slowly, so very slowly, he lets his reiatsu slide across the cat's fur, gliding deeper until he covers every single hair down to its skin. The cat is deeply asleep, completely paralyzed from the drugs he had fed it with its daily milk.

Sadly, the cat's physical body didn't make it through the sliding doors, but at least the broken soul-link vanished. Now, he has an intact black cat-soul with eyes as yellow as the ones of his goddess. Speaking of his goddess – she took a liking to the cat instantly, petting it for hours at a time while doing her paperwork. Soi Fong has already mentioned that she is jealous.

To his great regret, Captain Commander Yamamoto didn't allow him to make the cat his vice-captain. But, just like he expected, the cat has managed to worm its presence into the hearts of most members of the twelfth division. By now, the cat is treated even better than his vice-captain, although it still doesn't have a name. It simply is 'The Cat'. He has to be very careful that none of his officers or his goddess sees him drug The Cat.

Just like with his goddess, he isn't satisfied with trailing his reiatsu only across skin. That is the reason why he has drugged the cat; he wants to have the time to explore, which he doesn't have with his goddess. Slowly, his reiatsu trickles into a tiny, black nose, exploring the differences between human and cat anatomy. His awareness slides across a strangely folded olfactory epithelium, feeling the microscopic branches that allow for a slightly better sense of smell than in a human.

He follows the air down into the cat's lungs, feeling where the skin is so thin that oxygen and carbon dioxide can pass through veins into air. Every breath of the cat pulls and expands those thin membranes, and then lets them deflate once again. A whole universe of tiny bubbles at the end of thicker tubes is there for his exploration. It feels like the insides of a bubble-tree that constantly weaves in the air.

Gradually, over the weeks and months, he has become as familiar with the cat's body as he has become with his goddess. He can pour and mould himself into and onto them with hardly a thought now and without disturbing them in their sleep. Of course, as drugged as the cat is, not even cutting open its belly with a blunt knife would wake it up, but his goddess is a different matter. It takes hardly a thought anymore, and he can feel the intimate workings of her lungs, her ear-drums, her uterus.

But somehow, it is not enough anymore. It is no longer enough to study her from without and within; he wants to be even farther inside. He wants to see how her muscles twitch, how her organs work in symphony, how her bones carry her body, and, not least of all, how her reiatsu is so deeply interwoven with her life. He wants to see if he can find something that is life itself.

That is why he comes back to the cat, time and again.

The cat is less complicated than a human, and humans are less complicated than shinigami. Even in the case that he accidentally injures the cat, his medical skills are more than enough to heal it again. And as an added bonus, the cat doesn't get regular health check-ups from the fourth division. They would discover drug residue and strange scars on the cat.

As it is, nobody is the wiser, and he can continue exploring the cat.

* * *

Applying his knowledge from the cat to his goddess sounds easier than it is. He has studied the cat inside out, snooped into its brain, flowed through its veins. He knows how its bones are connected at the joints, how its muscles work to move its body, how its nerves gather and distribute information.

His work with the cat has helped a lot with his work with the gigai. Now, he doesn't only know _that_ the current method to produce gigai works, he also knows _why_. His special gigai works so well, in fact, that he almost can't feel the difference anymore. Almost, because he still doesn't know how reiatsu interacts with the body.

That is the big mystery; the mystery that draws him back to his goddess again and again.

As nice as it is to feel his reiatsu sink into the skin of the cat, it isn't the cat he wants to do this with. He wants to sink into his goddess; truly become one with her. But there is one major problem that hinders his explorations: her reiatsu.

Of course, her reiatsu has grown so used to his that it doesn't protest any surface explorations anymore, but it is always there when he tries to go deeper. The farthest down he has come is the first two layers of her skin, and how magnificent those layers had been! Fields of dead and living cells, fountains of sweat glands, forests of hairs, and of course, rivers of capillaries. He had almost been able to touch the first of the nerve endings…

At that instant, her reiatsu had stopped him, throwing him out of her skin and waking her up. He can still feel the resulting smack across his head, reinforced by shunpo.

He has tried it again several times, but every time, her reiatsu interferes. To his consternation, he cannot practice with the cat because it doesn't have any reiatsu. There is no resistance to him sinking into its skin.

Then, he has a brilliant idea. What if he tries to sink into his own skin?

He begins the way he has begun with his goddess and the cat, letting his reiatsu spread across his skin. That is where the first, and most obvious, problem comes forth. His reiatsu simply doesn't recognize the border of his own skin. He thinks it is because there is more of his reiatsu inside him than outside, so the exploratory tendrils only melt back into the pool instead of spreading against his skin.

In short, experimenting with himself gains him no new insights.

After several more days of studying the cat inside and out, he sees only one way. He has to ask his goddess for her active help.

He has never been one to hide the fact that he also experiments with living and breathing bodies, but he likes to think of himself as considerably more tactful than his fourth seat, a complete nutcase named Kurotsuchi. So, instead of inviting his goddess to be dissected for the sake of science – with as little pain as possible, of course – he flashes her his most salacious grin and suggests a bout of very, very kinky sex.

Her response isn't much better than the one Kurotsuchi would have gotten.

He flees a hail of sandals, ink-pots, and paper-weights, seasoned by juicy epithets. Maybe he should have waited until she is done with her paperwork. She always gets irritable when she has to sign mountains of orders, bills, and training schedules.

Maybe he also should have waited for Soi Fong to leave her side first.

It is no secret amongst the higher ranks of the Gotei Thirteen that he and the Goddess of Flash are more than childhood buddies, and almost everybody in second and twelfth division knows it for a fact. But, he suspects hearing it out loud and in person is something else than just knowing about it. At least, judging by Soi Fong's facial color, it is.

For three whole days, he doesn't dare approach his goddess again, letting her anger burn itself out. On the fourth evening, she shows up in his quarters wearing a very skimpy yukata beneath an ankle-length haori. Her family would be scandalized. A second and third glance at her figure reveals that it is even skimpier than her regular combat outfit – no small feat.

She stalks towards him, just like the cat he has studied so much, and purrs. "Now, what was that about very, very kinky sex?"

_Take that, Kurotsuchi_, he cheers inwardly. With a leer, he hands her a saucer of sake. "Drink up, my little kitty-cat."

She carefully sniffs at the liquid and frowns. "There's something else in there besides sake, isn't there?"

"Yup." he grins so broadly that his eyes close. "That's why I called it kinky sex, not drunken sex."

"And you're not going to tell me what it is?"

"Nope! Otherwise, it wouldn't be very, very kinky sex, but only kinky sex!"

Just like the cat, curiosity gets the best of her.

In one big gulp, she downs the sake and draws a grimace. "Just what the hell did you mix in there?"

"Not telling you! But I think you should come here because your legs are going to feel weak really soon." He hands her a cup of plain water. "That's clean; for the aftertaste. And I don't want to drug myself by kissing you."

She glowers at him, more mock than not, but there is a real part of a threat in it. Sipping the water, she sinks onto the futon next to him, her nose inches from his. "If I don't like what you're doing, you will have some very…exciting training days the next few weeks. Understood?"

Her breath smells slightly of sake, and he decides that she has drunk enough water to get rid of the drug residues in her mouth. He absently voices something like "Mhm" while he hunts after her taste combined with the sake. It should take ten, maybe fifteen minutes for the drug to take full effect, and there are better ways to spend that time than waiting.

Gradually, she becomes more excited, but also heavier in his arms. Before long, he lets her sink to the futon and helps her arrange her limbs comfortably as she doesn't have the strength to do so anymore.

"Wh't di' ye doo t' me," she slurs through unresponsive muscles. There is a mixture of anxiety and excitement in her eyes, but he knows that it could easily turn into fear and panic if he doesn't do some explaining soon.

"Well," he begins, taking care not to be so close to her as to be threatening, "the drug I gave you is a heavy muscle relaxant. Your consciousness, your reiatsu control, and your ability to perceive sensations shouldn't be influenced by it. Kind of like a full-body bakudou. Since you will be completely paralyzed in a few minutes, try signaling me with your reiatsu. One flare for yes, go on explaining; two flares for no, give me the antidote."

There is a long pause between them, so long that he starts wondering if he hasn't made a mistake on the drug composition and dose. Then, finally, a single flare.

"Thank you." He smiles his special, blinding smile that he has reserved only for her. "You don't feel numb anywhere, do you?"

A double-flare.

"Any pain?"

Another double-flare, more impatient now.

He smirks. "My, my. Are you getting impatient on me?"

A very strong "yes."

"Very good, very good," he nods to himself. Without hesitation, he reaches towards the sash that holds her flimsy yukata closed and slowly unknots it. Like an onion, he unwraps her layer for layer. First the haori, then the sash, then the yukata, then…

He raises an eyebrow and looks at her. "Very impatient, ne?"

Her cheeks color slightly under his stare, accompanied by a slow flare of her reiatsu.

Turning his smile into a warm, encouraging one, he finally comes to the point of the whole exercise. "Let me show you what I've been practicing," he purrs.

He knows that she must wonder why he is sitting back, refusing to touch her, but the lack of body contact actually makes concentrating easier for him. It will be hard enough to get past her conscious reiatsu without being tempted by her body, too.

Slowly, he starts pouring his power over her, moulding his microscopic touch against the bare skin of her stomach. Judging by the sudden pulse in her reiatsu, she has definitely felt that.

He continues his explanation. "I'm trying to touch your skin with my reiatsu. If you flare yours, you will dislodge me and break my control. As long as you are paralyzed, which should be about thirty or forty more minutes, this is the only thing I'm going to do. All I ask of you is to try and hold your reiatsu in check so that you don't block me. Should you feel overwhelmed or uncomfortable, you just have to flare it and you'll be rid of my touch. Since I use so little energy, I won't be able to hurt you when you flare yours, no matter where my reiatsu is. May I go on?"

He can practically feel her pondering his words. It doesn't take long, though, for her to flare her reiatsu slightly. His smile practically splits his face in half as he leans over to pat her shin. Then he settles back against the wall and concentrates for real this time.


	3. All Play and no Work

**3. All Play and no Work makes Kisuke a Dull Boy**

He has created a gigai for the cat. It feels exactly like the cat, on every level. Since his work with his goddess isn't going as well as he had hoped – well, actually, it is going far better than expected, but still not quick enough – he has to focus the majority of his research energies elsewhere.

He strokes the soft, black fur of the technically dead body as he watches the cat wash itself and give him an occasional glare.

The cat doesn't like him very much, and has become very suspicious of random dishes of milk. Nowadays, it is only once in a blue moon that he manages to knock it out. On the other hand, it isn't really needed anymore. He needs other subjects; live subjects with reiatsu. That is what he is working on with his goddess.

His goddess though… She is still a mystery to him.

To his surprise, she didn't kill him after the first time he had drugged her. She just looked at him strangely for weeks afterward. The second time, he had forgotten to ask her. He had kept running for the next few weeks, courtesy of random special forces, Soi Fong, and the Goddess of Flash herself popping out of the woodwork everywhere he went. It had taken a dozen apologies – more than half of which were genuine – the offer to rub her feet (and other parts) whenever she wanted, and a few very expensive dinners to get back in her good graces.

Then, she had made a 180 degree turnabout and asked him just why the hell drugging her was so important – she would also let him do that thing with this reiatsu when she wasn't unable to move. That had led to a complex explanation that was best summed up with, "Any movement on your part is dangerous. If I manage to get where I want to get, you'll have enough trouble controlling your reiatsu, let alone your body. You don't need any more distractions than necessary."

So she agreed to let him drug her every once in a while, but those whiles were, and still are, far too long for his taste. The third and the fourth time passed without a hitch. The fifth time, he ended up accidentally dosing himself, too, which meant that they had to forget about the sex afterwards.

The next few times were a bit tense, as he extended his explorations from surface skin into orifices. Delving into her mouth and cervix was surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) well-received, and she was a little bit jumpy when he took a closer look at her ears. But every time he came near her nose, she snapped the grip of his reiatsu off her. Afterwards, she explained to him that his reiatsu felt like water washing over her and she just couldn't bring herself to breathe water.

The next time after the breathing disaster, he foolishly tried several other ways to get into her lungs. That resulted in him being the paralyzed one the next time. He had never even felt her drug him; he supposes that she must have asked Soi Fong for something easily administered.

He has to admit that she is a fast learner. As a shunkou expert, she naturally has good control of her reiatsu. He was almost ashamed to see that, just with her natural reiatsu control, she was able to reach a level of closeness that had taken him many years of practice. It was a memorable experience, but he now understands why the 'while' between times is so long. Just as he likes tuna very much, but if he had tuna every day, he wouldn't like it so much anymore.

The next time, he solely concentrated on stimulating her until she almost passed out. Paralyzed muscles delay orgasm well beyond what one normally is capable of, as he had discovered during his own turn.

Then there came the time he accidentally overdosed her. Instead of exploring her, he spent more than ten minutes trying to keep her breathing and her heart beating. He still doesn't know whether it was his fault for not watching exactly what she was doing, or her fault for drinking the cat's milk. Actually, he doesn't really want to know.

The only good thing that came from that encounter was that he got into her lungs. While compressing her chest rhythmically with his hands, he helped her inflate and deflate her lungs with his reiatsu, until the antidote took effect. It was a fortunate miracle that, in her panic, she didn't make her reiatsu throw his out and instead gripped it tighter to her. As soon as she was somewhat stable, he rushed her into fourth division, since she was in shock and had several broken ribs from his compressions.

Fourth division asked some very uncomfortable questions, and only both of them swearing independently that it was an accident allowed them to escape Unohana's clutches. Up to this day, fourth keeps a very tight watch on both of them.

Without being prompted, he has sworn to his goddess that he will never drug her again without both of them having checked the dose three times over.

But, a few nights later, when they simply laid next to each other in comfort, he realized that something had changed. As is his habit, he waited an hour until she was deeply asleep, and then started trailing his reiatsu across her body. To his surprise, he felt absolutely no resistance from hers; in fact, it was almost inviting him in. With bated breath, he tried to sink into her skin, and he could only barely control his glee when there was no reaction from her side.

Smiling slightly, he watches the cat finish its impromptu bath. So far, he hasn't needed to paralyze her again for his explorations; their nights are enough.

* * *

He sits inside her body, watching and feeling her heart beat, watching and feeling her stomach grumble slightly, watching and feeling her breath flow. She is deeply asleep, unaware of what his reiatsu is doing. The last few times, she had complained about strange dreams of trying to give birth to a light, but as long as the side-effects aren't worse, he won't give up his explorations.

He has thought long and hard about why her near-death-experience has brought such a stark turn in events. By all logic, her reiatsu should have grown more hostile towards him, not more inviting. Of all theories he has spun, Benihime's sounds the most logical. His sword suggested one day, when he was deep in his thoughts, that her zanpakutou had seen his honest devotion to his goddess, and thus allowed him to finally go ahead.

Whatever the reason is, he is glad that he has finally found his place inside his goddess, surrounded by her flesh in the most intimate way. He moves through her, looking deeply into her bones, admiring how the wonder that is her body works.

"Sandal-man."

His metaphoric head snaps up, but somehow, her reiatsu has suddenly trapped him inside her.

"Sandal-man," the voice repeats. "Have you still not found what you seek?"

Deep inside him, he feels Benihime stir. Instinctively, he knows that it is not Benihime talking to him. But who else?

"I have," he tries to think at the voice, because he is quite sure that talking aloud will not help him.

"Then why are you still here?"

The voice sounds familiar, the tang of cold, feral steel in his nose. He can feel that, whoever is asking, is deadly serious. He answers without hesitation, and with the kind of truth that he normally avoids. "To worship my goddess and to become one with her."

Benihime has woken enough to ride on the back of his consciousness. He can feel some kind of wordless exchange flowing from her to the voice, and suddenly he knows who has called him. "Shizukashi?" (1)

It is not often that he has seen Shizukashi in action, but in the hands of his goddess, the zanpakutou is formidable. He has no doubt that it will be equally as formidable in expressing its opinion.

"Indeed, it is I."

He cannot see Shizukashi, but that doesn't surprise him in the least. It is enough of a wonder that a foreign zanpakutou is talking to him; the intimacy of visuals would be too much. Once again, he tries to retreat, to get away from Shizukashi's marked territory. But his goddess, or rather Shizukashi, as he suspects, doesn't let him.

Just beyond his consciousness, he can feel a steady flow of information between Benihime and Shizukashi. He has to wonder how often the two swords have communicated before. They seem comfortable enough with each other, no signs of hostility.

Time passes, and he grows more and more anxious. Soon, his goddess will ascend to REM sleep, and then it will be dangerous for him to remain in her body. One near-death-experience on his shoulders is enough, he thinks.

"Do you really think I would allow you to hurt her," Shizukashi's growling voice suddenly asks him, apparently picking up on his unvoiced thoughts.

He hears Benihime's amused laughter at the back of his mind, and he realizes how foolish he has been. "You have been there from the very beginning, haven't you?"

Shizukashi chuckles lightly. "It has been most amusing to follow your first attempts."

He is quite sure that his physical body is quite red from embarrassment, but a mental presence can't blush. Or so he hopes.

"Oh, Shizukashi knows you well enough to smell your embarrassment from a mile away," Benihime laughs at him.

Stupid zanpakutou. Even if Shizukashi hadn't known, it – she? he? – would know now.

From far, he feels the mind of his goddess slowly rise from the depths of sleep. Shizukashi's amusement suddenly turns into cold, steely nothingness. "Do you still want to be one with your goddess?"

"Yes," he answers without hesitation, as serious as the zanpakutou is.

He feels the sword weighing him, weighing his intentions. Benihime stays suspiciously absent.

Finally, the verdict comes. "If that is your dearest wish, then why do you only share her body?"

Like scales, it falls from his eyes. Made quiet by his realization, he withers before Shizukashi's regal presence. "I … I don't know how."

The truth hurts, even more when considering that he has spent decades trying to explore her body instead of her mind. He doesn't like admitting his failures. Benihime is a silent support for him, but does nothing to obstruct Shizukashi's piercing words.

"But," he adds, quite contrary to his usual scientific mindset, "I don't know if I should. I don't know if I want to know every intimate detail of her. I don't…"

He trails off, not knowing how to word his feelings. It is one thing to share the body of his goddess at the most intimate level. It is something else completely to intrude into her mind without giving her equal opportunity.

"Then come," Shizukashi finally commands. It seems satisfied. "For every one of her dreams you see, I will show her one of yours."

_Can a zanpakutou do that_, he asks himself. He feels Benihime shake her head. No, not _a_ zanpakutou. Benihime and Shizukashi together, though; they can.

Shizukashi's grab on his presence becomes stronger, and it somehow reminds him of the black alley-cat he had grabbed in a similar way such a long time ago. He almost feels sympathetic with it, being forcefully dragged through the body of his goddess.

There is a wrenching feeling, painful in its separation, and he finds himself thrown back into his body. Is Shizukashi angry with him?

Benihime calms him with her soft whispers, reassuring him that everything is okay. He should relax and let everything happen. Slowly, he feels himself drift off to sleep, trusting in his zanpakutou's advice. Benihime has never led him wrong yet.

From afar, a cool, regal presence is watching.

And then, he stands in a flowery meadow, spring having just opened the first sakura blossoms. Opposite him, there is a black cat. A black cat with yellow eyes.

* * *

(1) Shizukashi hopefully means silent death. Mute, Shizukashi


	4. In the Beginning was the Idea

**4. In the Beginning was the Idea. Then came the Happy Tree Friends.**

Shizukashi has shown him many dreams of his goddess. In most of them, she sees herself as a black cat with yellow eyes. Just like the cat he found so long ago. A coincidence?

The more he sees of her dreams, the more he becomes convinced that his goddess had, indeed, been a feline in one of her former lives. She exudes the same grace in motion, the same single-mindedness in hunt, and the same viciousness in her kills. Swift and merciless.

At the same time, he realizes that her view of him has changed. It is almost imperceptible, but there are differences in her behavior towards him. She doesn't harp on him so often anymore for forgoing training in favor of his experiments. She knows when his absentmindedness stems from preoccupation with a scientific problem, or whether he does it just to annoy her.

What has Shizukashi shown her? Some of the dreams where he fantasizes about the possibilities of each of his little projects? Some of the dreams where he delves into her body over and over again?

In a sudden bout of inspiration, he has fetched the cat gigai out of storage. The black fur is as sleek as ever, and when he lifts its lifeless eyelids with his thumb, he can see glassy, yellow orbs. The cat soul, which he hasn't needed to study for several months now, has somehow gotten over its fear of him. It strokes its body against his legs, rubbing its head against his hakama. Then, it soundlessly jumps on a pile of crates, settling itself in a statue-like position.

How well he can imagine his goddess in a similar position.

If he could, he would give her the cat gigai as a present. But since she is neither a mod-soul nor a soul-candy, she cannot use the gigai as he wants her to. She needs a human gigai, as close to her form as possible. This is so that she can easily enter and exit it. The further a gigai is from the shinigami's true form, the more uncomfortable it will be to wear.

_But_, he continues his thread of thought, _what if she entered a human gigai that changed into a cat?_

Excitedly, he scrawls several inky sketches on a stack of rice paper that he always keeps close for sudden ideas like this one. If he somehow could overcome the mass difference, and provided that all the nerves and muscles and connections changed in the right way, it should be possible for a shinigami to operate a cat body. The only problem would be the completely different set of instincts and motions.

He thinks back to the black stray under the blooming sakura tree. She certainly seems cat-like enough that she actually could make it work.

Immediately, he immerses himself in calculations, sketches, and possible solutions to his many problems. He is so focused on his work that he almost doesn't hear the sigh of, "Finally!" at the back of his mind. He pauses briefly to see if he has actually heard it. It didn't sound like Benihime. Shizukashi?

When no quick answer comes forth, he forgets it and goes back to his new invention.

That night – and as many of the following nights as possible – he returns to the side of his sleeping goddess with an unconscious, paralyzed cat under his arm. One time, he had actually run across Soi Fong like that, and she had raised an eyebrow so high that it had almost vanished under her bangs. He had muttered something about cat fur being good for rheumatic pains and muscle ailments. She had graciously reminded him that this specific cat was still alive, and that it had better be alive tomorrow. He had looked at her with the hurt look he had practiced for such occasions. In the end, she had fled, not wanting to know what he was going to do with the cat and her captain.

Laying the stiff cat on the futon next to his sleeping goddess, he delves into their bodies in a way he never before has. He compares their organs, the way they differ in shape and size, how they are connected to the rest of their bodies, and where they are located relative to each other. He compares their skeletons and how their bones are shaped. He feels for muscles and tendons, and for the hundreds of thousands of small blood vessels that surround them.

He tries to work out what he will have to change in which order for a human body to transform painlessly into a cat and back again, without dislodging the soul in the process.

While he is working, he can feel Shizukashi and Benihime looking over his shoulder. Sometimes, they even point out some things he has overlooked, like how to fit a human brain into a cat skull. Other times, they are merely supportive presences.

And every once in a while, he dreams about a black cat with yellow eyes, in a springtime meadow. Only now he isn't sure anymore whether it is his dream or hers.

* * *

All officers in his division, and most of his friends, know better than to interrupt him while he is busy with experiments. His laboratory is off-limits for everyone unless he specifically invites them.

Kurosaki-kun is somewhat of an exception there. Kurosaki-kun tends to…forget such trivialities as closed doors. Whenever he gets in one of his 'Daddy'-moods, it is better to stand aside and limit collateral damage than to outright try and stop him. As usual, he has Ukitake-kun and Kyouraku-kun in tow. Ukitake-kun actually looks apologetic, whereas Kyouraku-kun just looks drunk. Kurosaki-kun doesn't look drunk, but he is bouncing around worse than a five-year-old on fire.

Urahara raises an eyebrow at the white-haired man. "What the hell did you do to him?"

In the background, Kurosaki-kun babbles something about a "pretty kitty," and how he is going to be an "exemplary father" to the little kittens that "pretty kitty" will have one day, and how such a pretty kitty is strong and brave to stay in the division of butchers and mad scientist.

Ukitake-kun winces slightly. "Eating contest with Yachiru-fukutaichou."

Kyouraku-kun snorts, leaning against the door. "More like food-fight."

"With Yachiru-chan?" The scientist winces, too. "If he is that bad, what does she look like?"

"Hope and pray that the chaos and mayhem of eleventh doesn't swap over into your division," the womanizing samurai grunts.

In the background, Kurosaki-kun pokes the cat gigai on the table a few times, the real one having fled the room as soon as his visitors arrived. Smart cat. He wishes he could do the same.

Ukitake-kun tries to cheer him up. "At least Kenpachi-taichou knows how to keep her busy enough to minimize damage."

"Last time Kenpachi kept her busy enough, half of our division needed new windows and a new coating of paint," Urahara comments dryly. He can still remember all those more or less bloody stick-figure renditions of each and every one of Kenpachi's fights. When Yachiru had run out of painting space in eleventh, she had continued on to twelfth. And with her great strength, she had shattered every window she had tried to paint.

Kyouraku-kun chortles and takes a swig from his bottle. His straw hat covers his lazy eyes, and Urahara thinks he should get one, too. It looks cool. Only, maybe not straw; straw in his hair itches.

"This time, they're playing 'Happy Tree Friends', I think." The samurai gestures in the vague direction of eleventh.

Kurosaki-kun is still poking the cat gigai on the table, growing more and more agitated as it doesn't respond. He mumbles something about having to save the "pretty kitty," and Daddy curing it from its illness.

Urahara is still a little bit leery about Yachiru's seemingly harmless occupation. "And just what does playing 'Happy Tree Friends' entail?"

Ukitake-kun shrugs. "Murdering every fluffy little animal, like cats and bunnies, in as many different, gruesome ways as possible. We left when Ayasegama-san's plush collection ran out."

"Made their way over to my division," Kyouraku-kun adds helpfully, "to see if Rangiku-chan still has some toys from her childhood." (2)

"Rangiku-chan? You mean Matsumoto Rangiku? Your well-endowed eighths seat that loves to cuddle anything small and fluffy? The one with the zanpakutou that dissolves into ash?" Urahara looks back and forth between the two of them with growing horror. He has heard that Matsumoto likes her sake strong and plentiful, and that as often as possible, thank you very much. Combined with Yachiru's sugar high...

Both men look absolutely calm and inordinately composed in the face of impending chaos. Not that he would have expected anything else from the two laid-back captains, but this is about a 8.9 on the disaster-scale.

Then he shrugs. Chaos is good for creation, or so he has heard. "I'll tell my people to prepare their brooms then," he comments. After brief consideration he adds, "Especially for the hail of Sakura blossoms afterwards."

"Sakura blossoms?" the white-haired man asks curiously. Even Kyouraku-kun looks interested.

"Sure," Urahara shrugs. "If they make it far enough before she runs out of steam, they'll land in sixth. And I don't know if you've heard it or not, but ever since Kuchiki-san has shut her up with confetti candy, she has taken a special liking to him. I'll bet you anything that she manages to annoy him enough to call out his Senbonzakura."

Ukitake-kun's eyes widen disproportionately. "Now that I think of it – doesn't she have a 'special relationship' with Komamura-san, too?"

Kyouraku-kun gestures with his sake bottle, miraculously not spilling anything onto his expensive haori. "You call trying to scribble on his head with permanent marker a 'special relationship'?"

"When she calls him 'Koma-Koma' and tries to murder anything fluffy and animal-like?"

Well, color him impressed. Urahara has never heard his friend so frazzled before. Perhaps the white-haired man is a little bit closer to losing his cool than he had thought.

The eternally drunk samurai seems to realize that, too, and tries to calm their mutual friend down. "Relax, Juu-kun! The worst Komamura's going to do to her is throw her out. He doesn't like fighting in general, and fighting children in particular. And, anyways, Kenpachi's watching out for her. Neither Komamura nor Kuchiki are going to kill her. Here, have a taste of sake; that helps."

Before Kyouraku-kun can make good on his offer though, a massive explosion shakes the room, followed by the stink of ozone mixed with singed hair.

"What the…?"

All three of them whip around, only to discover Kurosaki-kun standing there with his hands outstretched, pointing towards the cat gigai. Both his hands and the gigai are smoking slightly, and from the frizzled state of Kurosaki's hair, Urahara would say that it had been a lightening kidou that had misfired somewhat spectacularly.

Tears are running down Kurosaki-kun's face, leaving clean trails on his sooty, unshaven cheeks. When he starts wailing about "poor neko-chan still being dead after Daddy's selfless attempts at reviving it," Urahara finally puts two and two together.

Eyes wide, the blond scientist rushes towards the cat gigai, trying to see if that lunatic has damaged it in any way.

"Juushirou, take him out of here _now_," he snarls. Both of the older captains know that when Urahara uses their first names, without honorifics, he really means it.

Without protest, they sidle up to Kurosaki-kun's sides and take him into their middle. Kyouraku-kun even goes so far as to thread his free arm under Kurosaki's to get a better grip on him. Together, they steer him out of the room, with Ukitake-kun trying to console the heart-wrenching sobs of Kurosaki's melt-down.

Urahara is so immersed in checking the cat gigai for any damage that he fails to notice his friends' last apologetic glances before they vanish around the corner.

Outwardly, the misfired lightening hadou hasn't done more than singe a few hairs on the cat's body. That is more than a miracle, considering the sheer destructive power of that type of kidou.

Inside though, the story looks completely different. Most organs and bones are affected, but not from typical electrical damage. Instead, they show strange signs of spontaneous inflation, reshaping, and mutation.

Acting on a hunch, he places the body on a set of scales. Two hundred grams heavier than it should be.

A nearly insane light ignites behind his eyes, making them glow in scientific glee. He can feel it – no; he is so close that he can almost taste it! He has found it, the breakthrough he has been waiting for all this time! He has found the beginning of a way to the solution of most of his problems!

Cackling madly, he rubs his hands together. With his whole enthusiasm, he throws himself into his work, never noticing the soft flakes of ash sinking to the ground outside. Anything besides the altered gigai becomes secondary. The visit of his three friends is already long forgotten. He also never notices the hail of Sakura blossoms half an hour later.

Only when he needs the real cat again to compare it to the gigai's modifications does everything come back.

Screaming for someone to save the cat from the 'Happy Tree Friends', he runs outside into ankle-height, ash-grey Sakura petals. He curses.

* * *

(2) I placed Matsumoto into eighth division because there's the best way to learn how to become one of those drunken, sex-obsessed people. Where else could she have gotten her … outgoing character?


	5. Coincidence or Not

**5. Coincidence or Not? That is the Question!**

He lets his reiatsu glide over the female gigai and probes it for perfection. It looks exactly like his goddess, but that is not enough for him. He probes deeper on unseen levels if muscles are anchored where they should be, organs formed adequately, and bones shaped correctly. This is far more important than the gigai's looks, but even to his very discerning eye, it is virtually identical to his goddess.

Since the body had once been a perfect copy of The Cat, he allows himself a moment to admire his faultless transformation.

It has taken a lot of work to find out just what Kurosaki-kun had mangled with his lightening kidou, and even more work to reproduce the effects in a controlled fashion. More than once, his vice captain found him on the ground, unable to control his twitching and seizing limbs. The good man never hesitated to cart him off to Fourth, and the watch they have kept over him since the near-death incident has only intensified. He doesn't know why; there are several officers in Eleventh, seated and not, who have a far more regular attendance sheet at Fourth than him.

When he asked Isane-kun, Fourth's vice-captain, she bopped him on the head. According to her, if someone from research comes in as often as those whacked-out lunatics in Eleventh, there is indeed reason to worry.

Not really knowing what to say to that, he merely smiled harmlessly at her and took the first chance to escape from the clutches of his healers.

His thoughts are interrupted by a sharp rap on the sliding door to his laboratory.

"Urahara-taichou?"

Ah. His vice-captain. Something important must be up.

He dances to the door and slides it open quite enthusiastically. "Satatoshi-kun! How nice to see you! Come in, come in! You have come at a good time! Have a look at my wonderful, new gigai!"

Satatoshi-kun is a small, unassuming man with an aura that could have fit him into Fourth Division easily enough. In fact, before the position of vice-captain had opened in Twelfth, Satatoshi-kun had occupied third seat under the leadership of Unohana-san and Isane-kun.

With his great medical knowledge, Satatoshi-kun is quite busy overseeing several groups that study hollow physiology, their evolution over time, and their powers. Satatoshi-kun is also responsible for creating standard gigai for every shinigami on real-world investigation duty. As such, he can truly appreciate the beauty of the body Urahara has so painstakingly transformed out of the cat.

Satatoshi-kun throws one look at it and turns a magnificent shade of red.

"That – that is…" he stutters, almost tripping over his feet in his haste to get out of the room, "Shihouin-sama!?"

Urahara nods happily, twirling his fan around in a small victory parade. "Isn't she perfect?" he is almost singing with elation.

Satatoshi-kun throws him a look as if he has lost all of his marbles.

"I think, captain," he begins slowly, "you should hope and pray that she never finds out that you have _that_ in your lab, let alone what you've been doing with it in your…free time."

"Free time?" Urahara cocks his head in fake innocence. He knows exactly what Satatoshi-kun means, but it is too much fun to tease the blushing man. Urahara starts to count off on his fingers. "Well, first off I've–"

"No!" Satatoshi-kun interrupts him frantically. "I don't want to know, either! It's enough for me to know that you and she are… And I really don't need any evidence!"

The ash-blond scientist studies him with his head tilted sideways, closed tip of his fan resting against the corner of his mouth. "Really?"

There is a brief pause, as if he has to think about it. Then Urahara snaps his fan open again and moves it gracefully in front of his chest, like a noble lady would. Or, for those in the know, like a master of tessen; war fans that have sharp steel-ribs but are camouflaged as harmless accessories. Danger hidden beneath a veneer of beauty, just like his goddess.

Urahara ends his pause before Satatoshi-kun turns any redder than he is. "Then why are you here, if you didn't come to admire my beautiful, new gigai?"

Satatoshi-kun composes himself admirably and his color almost returns to normal. "Captain, we have isolated a very strange incident where a gigai suddenly lost some of its mass. Vice-captain Soi Fong was in the living world to investigate rumors of a hollow that hides itself amongst regular humans. She took a gigai for better communication with the natives, but she encountered the hollow before she could assume her shinigami form again. A short time into their fight, she noticed an increasing lack of control over the gigai and decided to exit it despite witnesses. She defeated the Hollow and returned with the gigai.

"Our investigation showed the reason for the lack of control to be sudden shrinking and loss of mass. When asked for possible causes, the vice-captain said that the only unusual thing about the Hollow was its ability to draw reiatsu from its surroundings.

"Squad five has been tasked with measuring the gigai to see where exactly the mass has been subtracted, and squad three is trying to recreate the effect on another gigai. Squad six is on standby and waiting for further instructions."

Urahara's eyes narrow dangerously at the unexpected news. He raises his fan to hide the lower half of his face while his mind switches into high gear.

This is just one coincidence too many.

First, there was the black cat with yellow eyes, the one that matches exactly the dream image of his goddess. Of course, since he doesn't know how long his goddess has been dreaming of herself as a cat, it could be explained away as a woman loving a pet a little bit too much.

Secondly, there was Shizukashi letting him see some of the dreams of his goddess. He had been stuck, out of ideas and not really knowing just what he should do with his ability to explore his goddess' (and the cat's) physical body. Shizukashi forced him to open his eyes to the connections between cat and woman. Of course, since Shizukashi has never mentioned that connection, it could be explained away as a zanpakutou being concerned about its wielder.

Kurosaki-kun's very fortunate accident came next. For his taste, the accident was a little bit too fortunate. Just how can an experienced kidou-wielder, drunk or not, misfire a lightning technique in exactly the way that results in a breakthrough in his gigai research? After getting over the high of his breakthrough, and after getting a feel for just how complicated that 'misfire' was, Urahara has become suspicious. But, knowing Kurosaki-kun's tendency to hopelessly overact while drunk, he hasn't discounted the possibility of an accident yet.

Satatoshi-kun, however, is a completely different story.

The timing. The very same second he has managed to increase the cat's mass and mould it into a human – the answer to his second biggest problem – the decrease of mass to reverse the transformation is handed to him.

The person involved. Soi Fong is practically glued to his goddess; an easy target for manipulation if his guess on the mastermind behind all this is correct. It is a little bit unusual for a vice-captain to investigate rumors of hollows without anything solid to go on. Even more unusual for them to request gigai.

And, not least of all, him being the only one to be handed all those cards.

No, this is too much. Not a coincidence at all.

But what is it?

He absently waves Satatoshi-kun away. "Excellent. Have squad six think of possibilities to counter such unexpected loss of mass. Tell squad five to check if there are similarities to the damage Quincys do by drawing spirit particles from their surroundings. Tell squad three of a possible connection to Quincy powers, as well. I'm busy elsewhere today, but I will hopefully be able to join you tomorrow."

Satatoshi-kun bows to him with a smart "Hai" and strides out of his laboratory. Urahara looks after him, mind already whirling with possible explanations for those coincidences. Tonight, he will check his main suspicion as to the instigator, and then he will decide what to do from there on.

* * *

All of his attention is focused on the gigai in front of him. It is somewhere mid-point between cat and woman, a strange state that looks very gruesome. Inside, where his consciousness is lodged, it is a fight to keep muscles and tendons correctly aligned, bones composed appropriately, organs working properly so that it won't collapse mid-transformation.

It would be fatal for someone to be caught in a faulty gigai like that.

But, to his immense satisfaction, everything goes well. The body boils down to the shape of a cat, and then tediously expands into the form of a woman once again.

Satisfied, he takes a step back and disengages his reiatsu.

For actual use, the transformation will have to be quicker; his aim is for it to be nearly instantaneous. But for now, it is the best he can do. At least, from outside the gigai.

It is time to, once again, confront the entity who has instigated this charade that he, to his shame, has played along with for so many years without seeing the truth. From this point on, however, it is time to lay down all the cards. He cannot continue on his own anymore and he actually doesn't want to without getting some real answers that he was denied the first time.

With a practiced move, he covers the gigai with a blanket of linen and sweeps up the few cat hairs that he hasn't managed to include in the transformation. Then, upon seeing that everything is as meticulously clean as he needs it to be for tomorrow's work, he turns off the lights (electricity; something that twelfth division had been using for centuries before the living world caught on) and dances happily out of the laboratory. Time to look for his goddess!

He finds her in her quarters in second division, already half asleep.

When he enters flamboyantly, he is greeted by a geta to the head – one of his own that he had left there last time – and a tired, "Not tonight, Kisuke." Seeing that it is not her that he wants to talk to, he fakes a moderate level of disappointment, which isn't very fake at all because he is always in the mood to play with his goddess. Quietly, he undresses and lies down next to her, watching how her breathing evens out as she sinks into the deeper layers of sleep.

After nearly an hour, he makes his move.

"Shizukashi," he speaks inside his mind while his reiatsu is buried deep inside her body. It is the only way he knows how to contact her zanpakutou and it has worked before.

He only has to repeat the blade's name once before he feels Shizukashi's steely cold presence appear around him, waking Benihime in the process.

"What is it?"

Benihime is quiet in the back of his mind, but he knows that she is paying close attention. What he is going to do is very dangerous as he doesn't know Shizukashi well enough to predict its response. Nonetheless, he feels that the time for confrontation has come. He hardens his resolve.

"I have played along with your game so far," he begins without his usual half-truths; he knows that Shizukashi doesn't like them. "And I have continued my work only on your say-so. I can transform the gigai back and forth now without any problems, even if it is still slow. You know as well as I that the next step will be for someone to be _inside_ during the transformation. And that someone will have to be me, since I'm the only one who actually knows how to do it."

He takes a deep breath, tense for Shizukashi's response. "But for me to take such a risk, your say-so simply isn't enough. I need a reason – a good reason – why you have instigated this whole charade. 'For the sake of science' isn't going to cut it this time."

Both Shizukashi and Benihime are quiet, but whereas Benihime's silence is comfortable and anticipatory, Shizukashi's is one of a predator that has sighted prey. Ever since his first encounter with the deadly blade, he has always mused about what kind of creature Shizukashi's true form is. He imagines it is something wild, sleek and graceful, just like his goddess. Shizukashi is, after all, part of her soul.

But he is never going to ask. If his goddess wants to tell him, he will be honored beyond belief, but he is not going to go behind her back and sneak around. A zanpakutou's true form is too private for that, too intimate a detail. It tells too much about its wielder's soul.

Suddenly, Shizukashi's presence changes, losing some of its deadly intent. He feels like he has passed a test, but he didn't even know _that_ he _was_ being tested, let alone what about. Benihime stays suspiciously quiet.

"As you wish," Shizukashi's cool voice begins. "I will tell you part of my reason, but I cannot tell you all. Those parts that do not concern you, I will hold back."

For a brief instant, he wants to say that, no, this is not enough; it is all or nothing. But, even if Benihime didn't swamp him with feelings of trust towards Shizukashi, he wouldn't do so. Nobody ever reveals everything, and Shizukashi's brutal honesty is much more than he expected.

"Very well," he agrees, curious as to what the sword is going to tell him. And, of course, how far the sword's reasons match with the ones he has guessed at. He makes himself comfortable in his goddess' body, which has become more familiar to him than his own by now.

Shizukashi stays aloof, probably having expected this answer. "As you know, my name means 'silent death'. The ability to transform into an unsuspicious cat will help her go undetected and bring honor to my name."

He nods. He has suspected something like that. "But why a cat? Wouldn't some kind of bird be even more useful?"

There is no answer, only a slight feeling of disapproval from Shizukashi and a stronger one from Benihime. She reminds him of his promise not to go snooping about Shizukashi's real form. He is almost certain that Shizukashi is some kind of feline, because otherwise, his goddess could never hope to control a cat gigai well enough for it to work. His question was aimed to confirm that thought. He supposes that Shizukashi's silence is proof enough, but he hasn't left it any other possibility.

"Sorry," he apologizes.

Benihime approves.

"Should I answer the question, "Why me?" myself, too?"

"You already know the answer."

Yes, he thinks he does. Shizukashi has carefully selected him. First, it made sure that his reiatsu control could be honed finely enough so he could even think about transforming a gigai. Then, it made sure that he had enough interest in both his goddess and the scientific question behind her to labor on it for years. And then…

His eyes widen. "The one time where I almost killed her with the muscle relaxant…that wasn't an accident, was it?"

There is agreement from Shizukashi, which makes him angry. Very angry.

"She almost died," he snarls, and if he could, he would choke Shizukashi by its neck to show it how serious he is. "What kind of zanpakutou are you to place your wielder in such a dangerous situation? What if I hadn't known what to do? Would you also have risked her life if I had been someone else?"

There is a haughty, indignant flare. "Since it was I who led her to drink one of the drugged dishes for the cat, it would have been me who would have kept her alive. I helped you fill her lungs and contract her heart, didn't I?"

It did?

Yes, Benihime chides him. Wasn't that the first time he could extend his reiatsu deeper into her body than ever before? Without Shizukashi's help, he could have damaged her very badly.

It appeases him a little, but he doesn't like such surprises. "Do I even want to know how you got Kurosaki-kun to do his little stunt? And how you arranged Soi Fong's unfortunate encounter with the Hollow?"

Both Benihime and Shizukashi laugh at him. He feels some information flowing between the two swords, and their amusement increases.

"You know," he grumbles, "if you could give me such broad hints, it should have been easy enough for you to do all of that work by yourself in less than half that time."

"How?"

He blinks. How, indeed. As a zanpakutou, Shizukashi has no body with which it could go around and experiment to its heart's content. It has no way of accessing all the research material that is open to him. And he has a feeling that this is supposed to be a surprise for his goddess – so that she won't be disappointed if it takes far longer than she can be patient for. It would completely defeat the whole purpose of the action if his goddess knew what was going on behind her back.

So Shizukashi has been reduced to plotting and thinking about possible solutions, while he has been drafted to make those solutions reality. Actually, that plan isn't half bad; could be one of his.

He decides that Shizukashi's answers are satisfactory, and that the time for questioning its motives is over. Now, they can come to the fun part of the discussion.

"Alright. But I think the time of your non-involvement is over. I can already transform the gigai back and forth from without. I need to set a transformation path from within now, too. And I cannot do so alone, especially not since both end points of the transformation are no natural state for me."

"What do you expect me to do?" comes the prompt reaction. "You are not my wielder, so I am very limited in what I can do."

He nods. He has already thought about it, and he thinks he has a solution for that. "I will try the first transformation in here. Benihime will be the one to keep my soul anchored while I go through the transformation. You should be close enough to observe and give Benihime advice in case we encounter any problems. It would be even better if you were the one to make the transformation together with me, but I am not sure if you are familiar enough with me for that to work."

"A sound plan," Suzukashi agrees. "I will observe through Benihime, but I will not be directly linked to you. Before you test your theory, though, I would like you to show me how to transform the gigai from without. Should anything go wrong, Benihime can concentrate on anchoring your spirit while I reverse the transformation far enough to provide you with a body that can sustain life for at least ten minutes. That should be enough time for you to get out again."

This is even better than he dared hope. Suzukashi providing a security net will make the whole enterprise much less dangerous.

He touches on the most volatile subject: his goddess. "There's still one problem, though. I don't know how long it will take, and I'm sure neither one of us wants her to distract us right in the middle."

The mental equivalent of a shrug comes back, far more relaxed than he expected Suzukashi to act. "Drug her," the sword suggests calmly. "Nothing that relaxes muscles overly much so that she can help in case of emergency. And no barbiturates, because they mess with reiatsu control. But I am sure there are plenty of other substances you can try."

Benihime laughs at his gaping mouth. He shakes his head in disbelief, then laughs, too. "Very well. I will visit you again as soon as possible."

There is a brief flicker of agreement against his consciousness, and then Shizukashi withdraws.

He smiles and revels in the perfection of his goddess' body, until he feels her ascend to dreaming. Then, he exchanges the touch of his reiatsu for the touch of his hands, and for a long time, he celebrates his breakthrough.


	6. Transformers

**6. Transformers and the Path of Least Resistance**

"Ready?" he asks.

Benihime says she is ready, and through her, he can hear Shizukashi's "All clear," too.

It has taken Shizukashi several months to get enough control and anatomical knowledge to even think about transforming gigai. Even now, Shizukashi can only do small changes, but those will have to be enough to prevent complete disaster. At least, he hopes they will be enough. He doesn't want to imagine how much a zanpakutou can or cannot do without its wielder.

His goddess is fast asleep on her futon on the other side of the room. He has made sure that she will stay asleep for the next five hours, but that, in case of emergency, Shizukashi can wake her up.

Another goddess, this time an empty gigai, lies in front of him. This is the body he will slip into to set the path of transformation. Right next to the gigai, Benihime and Shizukashi lie side by side. The swords are touching each other to facilitate communication.

On the outside of the door, he has pinned a sign with 'Please do not disturb'. It is mainly aimed at Soi Fong, who is the only one to even think about coming near her captain's quarters at night. This had resulted in a few somewhat embarrassing moments for all three of them before, and Soi Fong is much more careful now.

Beneath the gigai, on the tatami mat, he has placed a small contraption with one of the soul separators. Both Benihime and Shizukashi can trigger the mechanism, resulting in him being forcefully expelled from the gigai. He hopes they won't need to, but he has to take care of all possibilities.

All in all, his preparations are as complete as they ever will be. Together with Benihime's and Shizukashi's help, he has identified and isolated every possible risk factor, and then worked to minimize them. At this point, further hesitation will only be counterproductive.

Taking a deep breath, he lifts the gigai's upper body by its armpits and enters it from behind.

Immediately, he becomes aware of how uncomfortable this artificial body is. He has been born as a man, he has grown up as a man, and he has been living as a man for more than a thousand years now. There is just no way that boobs and having to squat down to urinate will ever feel natural. Not to mention all those different proportions. He tries to blindly touch his nose and almost pokes his eye out.

Both Benihime and Shizukashi laugh at his cursing, and he sticks his tongue out at them. Hell, even that feels different from doing so in a male form.

He decides that moving as little as possible is the better part of valor, and instead, concentrates inwardly.

As soon as he tries to focus his reiatsu on the gigai, he rediscovers a problem that he hadn't thought of before. Just like with his regular body, his reiatsu encounters no resistance. How in the world is he supposed to do a transformation when he can't even feel where to start?

After several minutes of experimentation, he thinks he has felt a flicker of _something_. Several minutes later, he has identified that _something_ as his breasts, of all things. From there on out, he feels along the places where he knows – from long hours of study – this body should continue, and gradually, the gigai takes shape in his mind's eye.

He thinks he should be glad to be so uncomfortable in the gigai, because with a closer match, he never would have found anything for his reiatsu to latch on. But why did it have to be his _breasts_?

Mentally shaking his head, he ignores Benihime's chortles. Then he initiates the transformation.

Almost immediately, a sense of vertigo threatens to overwhelm him. Benihime's presence steadies him, but he almost loses his grip on his reiatsu. Gritting his teeth, he ignores the distraction and continues. He has no margin for error.

Slowly and carefully, he moulds bones and muscles, reshapes organs and nerves, always taking exquisite care not to damage anything. The sense of vertigo becomes a constant, and he learns how to work through it. But the additional reiatsu freed by loss of mass almost throws him off again. Only Shizukashi's quick intervention prevents the situation from spiraling out of control.

He can't even take a deep breath to center himself again because, although stable for the moment, his body has changed enough to be almost painfully foreign. Instead, he calls on all of his iron discipline and forces his reiatsu on mutating and molding and impressing those changes on the body.

After a sheer endless amount of time, he finally feels the gigai settle in its cat form.

The gigai has been transformed from human to cat and back again enough times that the two end points of the transformation mark stable states that the gigai tries to assume on its own. He has already linked those two stable states by a path of least resistance, but impressing that path into the body can only be done from within.

So far, he has only managed the shift from human to cat, and he already feels exhausted. Not so much physically (the transformation takes comparably little energy), as mentally.

And, not to forget, the torture of being caught in a cat's body. If he had thought being a woman was uncomfortable, being a cat was incomparably worse. He has no clue how to work four limbs – pardon him, five limbs; the tail is the worst since there is no human equivalent – and his senses are practically on overload. It is unbearably bright in the room, he can practically count the grains of wood in the ceiling, and the cicadas' song outside almost bursts his eardrums.

In the overload of sensation, he almost doesn't hear Benihime's soothing voice. As soon as he finds it though, he latches onto it as a stable point in the midst of chaos. He knows that if he doesn't get out of this body soon, he will go insane.

This time, getting his reiatsu to grip his gigai is much easier, probably because he is even more foreign to this state than the human one.

He ignores the sense of vertigo completely and forces the inverse transformation as quickly as he can. Somewhere, far beyond his current focus, he can feel someone worry, but he ignores that, too.

More and more of his reiatsu is drained as it solidifies into mass. He eyes his dwindling resources, noting that it will be a close race. He forges on. Muscles grow, bones creak, and nerves protest. Everything is swallowed by his need to get back into human form, and to get out of this gigai. But he is nearing exhaustion, the transformation swallowing even more energy than he had thought.

Just when he thinks he cannot go on anymore, he finally feels the gigai snap into its human form. Benihime immediately triggers the separation mechanism, and he finds himself catapulted out of the fake body to land unceremoniously on the tatami.

For a very long time, he can only pant, trying to get himself under control again. His panic mellows out, and his heart slows down. He reaches for Benihime, and through her, Shizukashi, letting their concerned presences soothe him.

Finally, he manages to gather enough energy to reassure them of his health. Both seem incredibly relieved, even the normally quite stand-offish Shizukashi.

"How much did you have to help me," he asks after looking at the now empty gigai. It looks a little bit disheveled after his hasty exit, but otherwise unharmed. A quick probe with his exhausted reiatsu reveals it to be in perfect condition, with the transformation path nicely impressed into the body.

Benihime answers for Shizukashi, since he can't hear it at the moment. "We had to give you a little bit of help for both energy-mass and mass-energy conversions, but otherwise, we only provided a steady focus."

He nods absently, the information in complete agreement with his own observations.

He lays his hand on the gigai's forehead. A short burst of reiatsu activates the transformation, this time completely without his guidance. The gigai swallows the last of his reiatsu and morphs itself perfectly into the cat.

With a satisfied smile, he falls unconscious.

* * *

Now that his part of the story is almost over, he is a little bit sad. He has repeated the nightmare of cementing the transformation path two more times, once in soul society, once in the real world, to the point that it is near instantaneous. The entire marvel of scientific progress is flawless. The only thing left to do is handing it over to its intended recipient. This will be his last contribution.

"Come, come. You just _have_ to see it," he encourages his reluctant goddess, pestering her until she agrees.

He has stored the gigai in a safe place in the world of the living, to make the surprise even greater. And, of course, to keep spies from interfering. He doesn't want anybody to find a body that can transform itself with merely a small burst of reiatsu, least of all Kurotsuchi.

His goddess reluctantly looks down at her paperwork, then back up at him, again. He can practically see how she shoves the paperwork into a big category labeled 'screw that'.

Secure in his victory, he smiles broadly and bows gallantly to her, waving her on with his fan. "After you, my dearest. We are going to the world gate."

She stalks by him, a little bit suspicious of his behavior, but doesn't protest. Shizukashi's contribution?

Following her, half a step behind, he admires her purple hair and her toned body, as they swing seductively from left to right and back again. It is almost like she is gliding on the air; feline grace honed to perfection.

When they halt, he almost bumps into her. Looking around, he sees that they have already arrived at the world gate. How quickly time passes when one enjoys himself...

"Well?" she asks impatiently.

He quickly concentrates on the matter at hand. "Oh, yes, yes. The coordinates."

Entering a series of numbers quicker than most can follow, he summons a hell butterfly and activates the gate. With an indecipherable expression on her face, she follows him into the blinding light.

On the other side, he has to blink a few times because it is raining steadily. Within a short few seconds, her hair is plastered to her forehead, and he supposes that he doesn't look much better.

"Sorry for the weather," he apologizes. "But I promise that there will be shelter, where we are going."

Her frown grows deeper. "Just what is important enough for you to drag me into the living world? Please don't tell me it's a new species of butterfly or moth again."

"You'll see, you'll see," he sings giddily, using his fan as a make-shift umbrella. Maybe he really should look into getting a hat like Kyouraku-san. "And, you have to admit, that Ishidashijimi butterfly was beautiful!"

Finally getting a glimpse of the hut – well, more like a shack – he has stored the gigai in, he accelerates his steps. "And, look. We're already here."

He invites her into the bare interior and offers to take her soaked haori. Shivering slightly, she shucks her straw sandals and hands him her coat. Only then does she see the body wedged into one corner of the hut.

While he divests himself of his own shoes and wet clothing, he observes her from the corner of his eye. Like a cat, she curiously investigates the body he has swathed in blankets. When the gigai doesn't move at all, she tugs on one corner of the blankets, revealing its face.

She inhales sharply in recognition, immediately descending on him in anger. "What the _hell_ is this!?"

Her golden eyes flash with fury, and despite her wind-swept appearance – or because of it – she looks more radiant to him than ever. Spreading his hands in a gesture of appeasement, he smiles slightly. "Not what you're thinking, I'm sure. It's a special gigai I've made for you."

Involuntarily, she looks back to the gigai, and with a glare at him, she turns to study it more closely.

"Try it on," he encourages her, only barely able to hold in his glee at seeing her reactions to more than a century of intense study.

She takes her time, as if she is intentionally keeping him in suspension. Knowing her, she probably is. Finally, when he almost can't contain himself anymore, she enters the body.

For a few moments, everything is quiet. Then the body moves to free its arms from the blankets. She gets up slowly, careful to keep at least one of the blankets wrapped around her. Flexing her hand and arms a few times, she studies them in amazement. "This gigai feels so much better than the usual ones. I almost don't feel a difference to my spiritual body."

He nods with a slight grin. "Mhm."

She twists and turns her body, trying to see it from all angles without the help of a mirror. The blanket can't quite keep up with her moves, giving him hot glimpses of the perfect body beneath. His grin turns wider in anticipation.

Then, finally, Benihime warns him that Shizukashi is about to make its move.

He is courteous enough to forward the warning to her. "I think you should sit down for a moment."

Surprised, she looks at him. "Why?"

Before he can say anything else, he feels a flare of reiatsu from her, and with an astounded expression, she loses her balance. He catches her rapidly shrinking form with an alert shunpo. A few seconds later, he's holding a dazed black cat with yellow eyes in his arms.

Carefully, he sets her down.

At first, the tip of her tail twitches. Then a foot shudders as, one after another, claws are extended. A little bit unsteadily, the cat struggles to its feet, swaying slightly from side to side, just like The Cat does after being drugged.

"Vat de …" The strangely deep voice cuts of with an ungainly squeak, and the cat looks even more confused.

He breaks out laughing. He has never managed to get that cat gigai to work well enough to even think about talking, so he has never tested out its ability to form words. It is a work of irony that his goddess sounds like a man now.

"Ai'm a cat?" The cat twists its head around to get a better look at its body, still a little bit unsteadily. It turns back to him, pleadingly. "Keeske?"

"Yep. Do you like it?"

The cat seems unable to shake off its daze, even a little bit fearful. He takes pity on it.

"To change back, you just have to feed a bit of reiatsu to your zanpakutou. It knows how to activate the transformation," he quietly tells his confused goddess.

Almost instantly, the cat grows back into a naked woman. She's shivering. Seeing that she's beyond words, he gently places the tip of Benihime's cane on her forehead and pushes her out of the gigai.

Like a child, he dresses her in her wet haori and waraji. It is a testament to her shock that she just stands like a doll with its strings cut while he rewraps the gigai in the blankets. Quickly taking it back to the corner, he grabs his own haori, slips into his geta, and softly leads her outside.

"Come," he whispers to her. "We'll get back to soul society, and then, you can lay into me, okay?"

Her head nods up and down, but her eyes remain blank.

Sighing a little, he unsheathes Benihime and quickly opens the world gate. Guiding her by her elbow, he leads her through and back to her captain's quarters. A few shinigami stare at them on their way, but he shakes his head at them before they can say anything. He's lucky that they don't run across Soi Fong.

Closing the shouji behind her, he takes heart in seeing that the familiar surroundings revive her a little. Like in a dream, she peels the wet clothes off her body and moves to kneel next to a brassier filled with hot coals, the only source of heat in the room. He decides that she is stable enough to be left alone for a short period of time and goes to fetch some green tea.

With a tray in his hands he returns to find her in almost the same position. Her color though is far better, and she looks a lot livelier.

Slowly, she turns towards him, studying his still dripping form.

"You know," she says in an almost normal voice, "your sense of humor leaves a lot to be desired. Shizukashi has deigned to inform me of everything you have so conveniently 'forgotten' to tell me.

"But…" She fluidly rises to her feet and stalks towards him until the only thing keeping her from getting into his face is the tea tray. With a graceful hand, she picks up one of the mugs of tea and takes a dainty sip, golden eyes boring deeply into his. Mug still in hand, she stalks around him, trailing her fingertips over his arm and shoulder until she's standing right behind him. Her free hand wraps around his neck in a position where she can easily snap it with her strength. She whispers into his ear, "With a bit of practice, I think I could get to like it."

Only Benihime knows of the relief behind the shit-eating grin spreading across his features.

The End

* * *

**A/N:** I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I did writing it. Kisuke is just such a nice, whacked-out scientist that, despite his insanity, is still lovable (contrary to Kurotsuchi… Although Kurotsuchi's fight against Szayel was beyond cool!). And, again, many thanks to _Guttersnipe, _the wonderful beta for this story. Without her, this story would be far more clumsy, and she bravely weathered the storm of questions I had.


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